Mid 2020-? Police Murder of Yet Another US Citizen of Color Triggers Mostly Peaceful Protests Jacked Up by Angry Cops w/Weapons. 7/30/20: Former Trump campaign staffer Denson files for summary judgment In lawsuit challenging campaign’s illegal non-disclosure agreements.
On July 30, 2020, Protect Democracy, Bowles & Johnson PLLC, and Ballard Spahr LLP filed a motion for summary judgment on behalf of Jessica Denson and other 2016 Trump campaign workers who have been silenced by the Trump campaign’s use of ambiguous and overly broad nondisclosure and non-disparagement clauses (the “NDAs”) in a form contract they required all 2016 campaign workers to sign.
The motion seeks a declaratory judgment that the Campaign’s contract is void and unenforceable and an injunction prohibiting its enforcement. The motion for summary judgment can be found here. Denson filed her lawsuit on June 1, 2020, in New York Supreme Court, after the New York State courts lifted a moratorium on the filing of new actions prompted by the COVID pandemic. The Campaign removed the case to federal court. During a July 9th conference, the federal district court entered an expedited briefing schedule for summary judgment. 7/29/20: Fuhrer Trump tells suburban voters they will ‘no longer be bothered’ by low-income housing. US President Donald Trump speaks as he departs the White House in Washington, DC, on July 29, 2020 en route to Texas.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday made one of his most overt appeals so far in the campaign to White, suburban voters, saying in a tweet that they will no longer be “bothered” by low income housing in their suburbs. The tweets come as polls show Trump’s reelection effort is faltering in the suburbs, fueled by his administration’s failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, the ensuing recession, and Trump’s aggressive opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, which polls show most suburban voters support.
Trump’s tweet refers to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule, an Obama administration update to the 1968 civil rights legislation, the Fair Housing Act. The rule required local governments receiving federal funds for housing and development to account for biased practices and craft a plan to fix them. 7/26/20: DNA study offers insight into shameful story of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
It's one of the largest studies of its kind, thanks in part to the massive database of 23andMe customers that researchers were able to recruit consenting participants from.
The authors compiled genetic data from more than 50,000 people from the Americas, Western Europe and Atlantic Africa, and compared it against the historical records of where enslaved people were taken from and where they were enslaved. Together, the data and records tell a story about the complicated roots of the African diaspora in the Americas. For the most part, the DNA was consistent with what the documents show. 7/24/20: Trump tries playing off what he assumes are the fears of suburbanites. QUAKERTOWN, Pa.
(AP) — President Donald Trump this week sent a message to “The Suburban Housewives of America,” and in a single tweet summed up his strategy for shoring up support in communities critical to his reelection chances: Scare them. “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!” He wrote. 7/23/20: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Full Response to Rep. Ted Yoho. 7/22/20: Mayor says Chicago expects influx of federal agents to help fight violence, ‘but we do not welcome dictatorship’ After a frenzied 24 hours during which Mayor Lori Lightfoot threatened to sue if President Donald Trump tried to send federal agents into Chicago without her permission, she acknowledged Tuesday that the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime but warned that her administration would be vigilant against abuses of power.
Lightfoot changed her tone after talking with U.S. Attorney John Lausch, a former colleague who she has said she respects and admires, who assured her an influx of law enforcement would be working “collaboratively” with Chicago cops against violent crime. The unfolding situation in Chicago “at this point” won’t resemble the situation playing out in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified federal agents wearing camouflage uniforms have been denounced by local leaders for their actions, Lightfoot said at an unrelated news conference. For Lightfoot, the prospect of increased federal assistance for anti-crime efforts is a thorny proposition. Illinois U.S. 7/21/20: ‘Naked Athena’: The story behind the surreal photos of Portland protester. WARNING: This story contains images of graphic nudity that some might find offensive.
It was 1:45 a.m. Dave Killen, a photographer for The Oregonian/OregonLive, was nearing the end of his shift covering the nightly protests in Portland. In the five hours he had been out, Killen and a group of protesters had been pushed by police northward on Third Avenue, he said, to its intersection with Taylor Street. Officers stood across the intersection, facing the group of protesters.
7/20/20: Un homme tente de s’immoler par le feu devant le Palais fédéral. 7/19/20: Trump Plans to Expand Federal Invasion of US Cities. Donald Trump displays an executive order on "Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence," on Friday, June 26.Tia Dufour/White House/ZUMA Wire For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters.
President Donald Trump plans to assert new authority this week to dispatch federal law enforcement agents to American cities to quell “unrest,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday on Fox News. 7/19/20: How the Black Lives Matter generation remembers John Lewis. Of all the ways that John Lewis influenced American life and politics, his indelible impact on young people may be among the most enduring.
From student activist to elder statesman, Lewis continually encouraged the nation’s youth to start “good trouble” — and modeled just how to do that. He was arrested alongside millennial activists pushing for comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration laws in 2013. 7/15/20: Ghislaine Maxwell is married, prosecutors say in court. The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who faces federal charges in Manhattan for allegedly enabling Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of minor girls, is married, prosecutors said during a court proceeding.
Prosecutors made the revelation on Tuesday when arguing that Maxwell should be detained pending trial. Maxwell, who had asked for release on a $5m bond co-signed by six people, was ultimately denied bail. Maxwell pleaded not guilty to the charges. They also said Maxwell had “declined” to identify her spouse to court officials. 7/13/20: If past crises had evoked leadership like we have today for COVID-19. 7/9/20: Zuckerberg Still Struggles w/Hate Speech. Facebook has failed on civil rights.
On Wednesday, after two years of work, the social media giant finally released the results of its independent audit, a wide-ranging report on the state of civil rights on Facebook, from hate speech to advertising to algorithmic bias. 7/10/20: Trump commutes jail sentence of confidante Stone. United States President Donald Trump late on Friday announced that he is commuting a jail sentence imposed on Roger Stone, just days before the longtime political operative was due to report to federal prison. "Roger Stone has already suffered greatly," the White House said in a statement. "He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man! " Trump's announcement came just minutes after an appeals court in Washington, DC denied Stone's request for a prison sentence delay. Stone told The Associated Press news agency that Trump had called him earlier on Friday to inform him of the commutation.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called Stone a "victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media". "Not only was Mr. 7/9/20: Biden unveils $700B 'Buy American' proposal to grow US industry. Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a $700bn proposal to grow American industry as the centerpiece of his presidential campaign pitch to lead the nation’s economic recovery in the wake of the devastating coronavirus pandemic. The ambitious “buy American” campaign is one pillar of a broader economic platform, titled “Build Back Better”, which Biden is expected to outline at a speech near his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday afternoon. Though Biden leads Donald Trump in national and battleground state polls, voters consistently say they trust the president’s stewardship of the economy.
The proposal calls for the federal government to purchase $400bn worth of US goods and services and invest $300bn in research and development of technologies such as electric vehicles, 5G cellular networks and artificial intelligence. 7/9/20: Supremes Rule Trump Cannot Block Release of Financial Records. One of the cases concerned a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R.
Vance Jr., a Democrat. It sought eight years of business and personal tax records in connection with an investigation of the role that Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization played in hush-money payments made in the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Both Mr. Mr. Mr. In a footnote to the decision, Chief Judge Robert A. “We note that the past six presidents, dating back to President Carter, all voluntarily released their tax returns to the public,” Judge Katzmann wrote. 7/7/20: $1.2M bail set for driver who slammed high speed into 2 protesters in Seattle. SEATTLE — A judge on Monday set a $1.2 million bail for the man accused of driving a Jaguar on to a closed Seattle freeway and hitting two protesters, killing one and seriously injuring the other. Dawit Kelete, who is Black, drove the car around vehicles that were parked on Interstate 5 to protect a group of Black Femme March demonstrators, part of the Black Lives Matter movement protesting racial inequality and police violence.
The car hit two people and sped away about 1:40 a.m. Saturday, police said. 7/7/20: Hanks 'has no respect' for people not wearing masks. Image copyright Getty Images. 7/7/20: Judge suspends use of Dakota Access Pipeline. Image copyright Reuters. 7/6/20: Charge filed against woman who called police on birdwatcher. Image copyright Christian Cooper A white woman in New York is facing a criminal charge for calling 911 on a black man after he asked her to put her dog on a lead in Central Park. 7/4/20: Seattle Protester, Summer Taylor, Dies After Being Struck by Car. 7/1/20: Weed-Killing Robots Could Make Pesticides Obsolete. The Greenfield robotic solution is based on a simple idea: Keep mowing. When Brauer started thinking about which weed to target first, pigweed was an obvious first enemy.
The pain-in-the-ass weed, also known as Palmer amaranth, claims the annoying weed holy grail — it is invasive, adaptive, and herbicide-resistant. A single plant, undeterred, can grow over six feet tall and produce up to half a million tiny seeds. It distributes easily, and young seedlings continue to germinate even after the cash crop is planted.